With hopes of chipping away at the low end Windows PC market, Google enlisted ASUS' help in putting together a small form factor desktop machine running Chrome OS. The result is the ASUS Chromebox, a NUC-like machine running Google's browser based OS. The specs of the ASUS Chromebox are respectable compared to Intel's line of Haswell NUCs.

You get your choice of one of three CPUs, all based on Intel's Haswell architecture. There's the Celeron 2955U, Core i3-4010U or the Core i7-4600U. All three options carry the same 15W TDP rating, and the system is apparently fanless (at least the Celeron and Core i3 versions are, waiting for confirmation on the i7). ASUS only plans to offer the Celeron and Core i3 versions in North America. 4K video out is supported on the Core models. Given how well Chrome OS can run on a pair of ARM Cortex A15 cores, I fully expect a 15W Haswell based system to be a great performer.

ASUS' Chromebox comes with a 16GB M.2 SSD, and dual-band 802.11n wireless all for a price starting at $179. Google will throw in 100GB of space on Google Drive for 2 years to make up for the limited internal storage.

The box itself is a little bigger than Intel's Haswell NUC, but we're still talking about an extremely small form factor computer. ASUS will ship all units with a VESA mount as well. You can expect availability sometime in March.

64 Comments

I've been considering the NUC for something to augment my HTPC with tighter integration, or even to replace it so I can convert the more powerful system into a SteamOS box. This might fit the bill even better since I use a lot of Google services. I haven't played much with ChromeOS, although I'd be interested to know what the set-top integration is like. Can this be controlled via a remote? It has Bluetooth, which is a plus, so I can use a simple media keyboard/touchpad combo with it.Reply

If the final SteamOS (DebianWheezy based it seems) could be put on this, what a great cheap streaming SteamBox. Hoping that ASUS just goes ahead and makes a cheap streaming-only SteamBox, but have a bad feeling that it'll be up the end-user to put a Linux flavor or SteamOS on this thing. What a great price-performance, though. A SteamBox like this starting at $179 could be a game-changer.Reply